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When we remember the birth control movement, we must commemorate the extraordinary women who willingly risked so much for the advancement of such a controversial movement. For these activists, giving all women new access and opportunities to contraceptives meant more than their own potential individual advancements. Dr. Hannah Mayer Stone embodied this type of dedication. Chosen by Margaret Sanger in 1925 to be the head physician of the Clinical Research Bureau, Dr. Hannah Stone would prove to be dedicated not just to the cause, but also to the over 100,000 patients she saw during her time at the clinic.

Hannah M. Stone

While she defied the norm with her passionate involvement with the movement, Dr. Hannah Stone surpassed traditional 20th century women’s roles all her life. Born in New York City in 1893 as the daughter of a pharmacist, she went on to receive a degree in pharmacy from Brooklyn College in 1912. Following this, she attended New York Medical school, receiving her MD in 1920. In 1921, she attended the first American Birth Control Conference, where she met Margaret Sanger. Sanger opened the Clinical Research Bureau in 1923, and two years later she needed a new physician.Dr. Stone was already a member of the medical advisory board for the Clinical Research Bureau when Margaret Sanger offered her the position of physician. As she had this prior involvement, her interest in the birth control movement was known. Dr. Hannah Stone would work at the Clinical Research Bureau, which was later renamed Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau in 1928, for 16 years without receiving compensation.

The main purpose behind the establishment of the Clinical Research Bureau was to do more than just administer birth control to patients; it was to also prove the effectiveness of different types of contraceptives through detailed record keeping. Dr. Stone handled both tasks methodically. By the end of her time at the clinic in 1941, she had helped over 100,000 patients and she had maintained a record for each one. But aside from just being thorough, Dr. Stone was compassionate and understanding with her patients. Her demeanor led her become known as the “Madonna of the Clinic.” In her writing, Sanger expressed her adoration of Dr. Stone. She commented on her attributes, listing “her infinite patience, her attention to details, her understanding of human frailties, her sympathy, her gentleness” as reasons that she was invaluable to the work of the clinic. Dr. Stone understood the value of her work at the clinic, not just in her interactions with patients, but also with her responsibility of compiling data about her patients. During her 16 years of service to the Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau, Dr. Hannah Stone was able to leave a profound impact. Her detailed records helped the movement discover that the most effective method of birth control was the diaphragm used with spermicide. She later published some of her findings in “Therapeutic Contraceptives.” This article was one of the first involving birth control to be published within a medical journal.

Her passion for helping women extended past the realm of birth control. Dr. Stone and her husband, Dr. Abraham Stone counseled couples with relationship and sexual problems from within the clinic as well. This began casually, but it developed into the more formal Marriage Consultation Center which was ran out of the clinic and a community church. Through this work Dr. Stone again acted as a trailblazer, as these marriage counseling sessions had not been done in this manner before. In 1935, Dr. Stone and her husband were able to publish their counseling techniques in a book entitled A Marriage Manual.

Dr. Stone’s association with birth control often caused her to put the movement’s progression ahead of her own career, as her work at the clinic cost her many opportunities. She had been working at the Women’s Lying-In Hospital when she first started to work for Margaret Sanger at the Research Bureau Clinic. Her new work at the clinic caused a conflict with her the Women’s Hospital and they asked her to give up her newly acquired position. She refused this request, and as a result she was asked to resign from the Women’s Lying-In Hospital. This would only be the first of many times where her work at the clinic would prove to be a detriment to her career. Later, in 1929, Dr. Stone was arrested with four others when the Research Bureau Clinic was raided. Although the charges that were brought against her were later dismissed, the picture that was taken of her in handcuffs permanently damaged her record. Dr. Stone felt the full impact of this when she applied to admission to the New York Medical Society in 1932, and her application was tabled. She continued to take risks for the movement, including her involvement with the test case US v. One Package, when a package of Japanese pessaries were shipped to her and later seized. This case ended up being monumental, as it was the first step in legalized birth control. Despite her involvement with the birth control movement, and the clinic itself proving to be a detriment to the furthering of her medical career, Dr. Stone’s dedication to the cause never faltered.

Dr. Hannah Stone died suddenly of a heart attack in 1942 at the age of 48. Her loss was deeply felt at the clinic, as she had dedicated so much of her time to assisting the patients. She was replaced by her husband, who carried on her legacy and dedication to the cause. Dr. Stone is remembered for her kindness, and her groundbreaking work. She was well respected for her tremendous knowledge on administering effective contraceptives. Thousands of medical students and doctors alike came to the Research Bureau Clinic to learn her methods. Even though Dr. Stone was recognized for her greatness, Margaret Sanger wrote extensively on her humility. She did not crave attention or recognition, and often others took responsibility for her advancements.

As a doctor, Hannah Stone was a trailblazer. As a woman, she exceeded the expectations society had for her at the time. But it is her selflessness that is most inspiring. Dr. Hannah Stone dedicated nearly her entire career to serving women and the birth control movement, and despite her vast achievements she never sought recognition for them.

To celebrate International Women’s Day, the Sanger Papers want to remind everyone that the struggle to acknowledge the contributions of women is unfortunately not new. In that spirit, we thought we’d look back at an article published in our newsletter in 1994.

“We have worked intensively on this project; forming the organization first, raising money, collecting archives and, perhaps even more important, trying to make the United States archive minded….We have opened the minds of people all over the country to the necessity of collecting and preserving archives – especially about women.” (Sanger Papers, Library of Congress) While this sentiment accurately reflects the goals of the Margaret Sanger Papers Project (and most women’s archives and editing projects), the statement was actually made on September 16, 1940 by Inez Hayes Irwin describing the struggles of the World Center for Women’s Archives (WCWA). Historian Mary Ritter Beard had founded the WCWA out of frustration over the difficulty she encountered in trying to locate women’s papers. Beard realized that before historians could examine or interpret women’s contributions to civilization and incorporate their accomplishments into their books and curricula, they needed to examine primary source material on women’s lives. But such material was not easy to find.

Mary Ritter Beard

Beard’s quest to collect and preserve the documentary evidence of women’s history began in earnest when, in 1935, she was approached by Hungarian-born pacifist-feminist Rosika Schwimmer with the idea of establishing a center to document women’s roles in the peace movement. Beard quickly expanded the idea to establish an archive and education center for the study of women. The World Center for Women’s Archives (WCWA) had its first organizational board meeting in New York on October 15, 1935. In addition to appointing a board of directors (chaired by Inez Hayes Irwin) as its main decision-making body, the inaugural meeting invited well-known women sponsors to serve in an advisory capacity. With endorsements from prominent women like Eleanor Roosevelt and Frances Perkins, and support from Fannie Hurst, Mary Ware Dennett, Georgia O’Keefe, Katharine Houghton Hepburn, Mary Van Kleeck, Juliet Barrett Rublee, Alice Paul and Margaret Sanger, among others, the WCWA was officially launched on December 15, 1937, at the Biltmore Hotel in New York City.

“NO DOCUMENTS, NO HISTORY,” was the motto (coined by French historian Fustel de Coulanges) of the WCWA, reflecting Beard’s conviction that women’s history requires the preservation of women’s sources. “What documents, then, have women? What history?” she asked, for without these records “women may be blotted from the story and the thought about history as completely as if they had never lived….But what do the women of today know about the women of yesterday to whom they are so closely linked for better or for worse? What are the women of tomorrow to know about the women of today?” (WCWA Pamphlet, ca. 1939, Sanger Papers, Library of Congress) The creation of the WCWA was to be the answer for those concerned with preserving the history and achievements of women. Its purpose was: “To make a systematic search for undeposited source materials dealing with women’s lives and activities….To reproduce important materials, already deposited elsewhere, by means of microfilming and other modern processes…” (WCWA Brochure, International Organization Records, Sophia Smith Collection)

Inez Haynes Irwin

In the four years of its existence, the WCWA helped highlight the richness and depth preserved in the records of women’s history. Its preliminary work in soliciting women to donate, deposit, or pledge their papers and records to an archives proved to be invaluable. Materials which were promised to the WCWA included the records of the National League of Women Voters, the National Consumer League, the National Council of Jewish Women, and the National Association of Women Lawyers. Among the women who pledged their personal papers to the Center were Ida Tarbell, Eleanor Roosevelt, Carrie Chapman Catt, and Judge Florence Allen. Among the collections in the Center’s possession at the time of its dissolution were those of Lillian Wald, Kate C. Hurd-Mead, Catherine Beecher, and an impressive collection of records, maps, and charts belonging to Amelia Earhart.

Although predominantly reflecting the achievements of notable white American women, the WCWA also collected materials concerning the women’s movement in Germany and the history of Japanese women from the mythological age through 1935. Prefiguring the emergence of the new social history and feminist history, the founders defined the WCWA’s collection mission broadly, asserting that women’s history would be found not only in the written record, but also in oral histories, objects and artifacts. They mounted an exhibit of Native American women’s pottery that included a pictorial history and ancient medicine aprons which told the lore of herb women. From its offices in New York and Washington, the Center also compiled and distributed lists of secondary sources essential to the study of women, served as a clearinghouse for information about women at other institutions, and furnished information for a series of radio talks on women in American society.

Yet despite the wide publicity and initial support from prominent individuals, the WCWA was unable to build a permanent future for itself. By the end of the decade, the war in Europe preoccupied the WCWA’s sponsors, overshadowing their interest in documenting the lives of women. Faced with a lack of funding, weakened by disagreements among its leadership and Beard’s resignation in 1940, the Center was forced to close its doors on September 16, 1940. Though the Center failed, Inez Hayes Irwin sent a hopeful message to the Center’s sponsors: “When the quiet days of peace and reconstruction come, we are sure there will be many such organizations as we have worked so hard to form and perhaps ultimately the big central one that was our dream.” (Irwin to Sanger, 9/16/1940, Sanger Papers, Library of Congress)

After the Center’s closing, the collections gathered by the WCWA were either returned to their owners or entrusted to other repositories. Yet the WCWA left a lasting impact as several colleges and universities began collecting source material for the study of women, and individual women became aware of the importance of taking steps to preserve the records of their lives. Although Margaret Sanger never donated her letters to the WCWA, less than two years after it was disbanded, she began to transfer the first large collection of her papers to the Library of Congress; in 1949, encouraged by her close friend Dorothy Brush, Sanger donated her other papers to the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College. Ironically, Mary Beard destroyed the majority of her own personal papers.

Committed to “put women in the record,” Mary Beard and the WCWA sought to do what the Sophia Smith Collection (Women’s History Archive) at Smith College and the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe College are in fact doing – collecting and preserving the records of American women’s history. At the same time, editing projects such as the Sanger Papers and other women’s editions are working to assemble and disseminate women’s papers through both print and digital technology.

While Beard’s notion of one central archive for women’s records and papers remains the stuff of dreams the possibility of making it a reality is increasingly viable. Technological advances such as digital image storage may provide a way in which one central database can access images of hundreds of thousands of women’s records and papers. As the Sanger Papers project explores these new methods of disseminating the records of Sanger’s life, we are hopeful that it will take us a step closer to making Beard’s dream a reality.

Throughout the history of the United States, the judicial system has been used as a mechanism for social change. Consider some of the most monumental decisions, from Brown v. the Board of Education to the more recent case of Obergefell v. Hodges. The decisions of these two cases reflected the evolving opinions among the American people, and enabled society to implement the necessary changes. In times when the situation requires a quick solution, the court room provides a benefit over legislation, as it takes less time to reach and implement a decision, then it does to pass new legislation. Therefore, when Margaret Sanger was faced with the restriction of censorship that was the by-product of obscenity laws, she sought a situation that would allow her to speedily remedy the situation. She believed that the repeal of the Comstock laws would allow the birth control movement to continue on past the problem of censorship, and towards legalization. Thus led to the filing her test case, U.S. v. One Package of Japanese Pessaries.

Sanger and Morris Ernst

By the 1930’s, Margaret Sanger had made strides in the fight for women’s access to birth control, at least on a New York State level. However, her ability to provide both birth control and information about birth control was limited by the presence of the Comstock laws. Passed by congress on March 3, 1873, the Comstock laws were the first legislation to deal with contraceptives explicitly, and they defined contraceptives as obscene, and prohibited their circulation, and information regarding the prevention of conception. The development of this bill was essentially based on morality, as contraceptives were believed to provoke lust. Initially, this bill made it nearly impossible for women to obtain birth control, and despite being rarely enforced during the 1930’s, fear was enough to prevent the circulation of materials. At this point, Sanger had realized that to open the access to birth control that had been so severely limited by the Comstock laws, she needed to create a case that could challenge its precedent. In June of 1932, she found her opportunity. A package of pessaries was shipped to her from Japan, only to be seized by customs and sent back to Japan. Sanger ingeniously built her test case on this result, asking Dr. Sakae Koyama, president of the Juzen Hospital in Osaka, to send a second package to the United States, this time to Dr. Hannah Stone. As Sanger expected, the package was again seized

by customs, giving her a situation on which she could build her test case. According to Section 305 of Title III of Revenue Act, Dr. Stone did not have the right to import contraceptives. This test case was well thought out, as Sanger had spent time with her attorney, Morris Ernst, planning for this opportunity. They wanted to challenge the federal law’s ability to inhibit doctors from prescribing their patients contraceptives.

Hannah Stone

The presiding judge on the case, Grover C. Moskowitz, heard the case on December 10th, 1935. As there were in facts in question, the case was based on his judicial interpretation of the law. On January 6th, 1939, Judge Moskowitz ruled in the favor of the women’s rights activists. He dismissed the libel charges within the case, and stated that the pessaries that had been confiscated did not come within the scope of the Comstock Laws, as they were intended for a lawful purpose, which was to “cure and prevent disease.” Later, when the case went in front of the U.S. Court of Appeals, Judge Augustus Hand upheld the decision made by Judge Moskowitz. According to Hand, the language used within the Comstock Laws was uncompromising; however it would be legal for contraceptives to be imported into the United States so long as they were being administered by a health professional for reasons pertaining to the patient’s health. Judge Hand believed that had 19th century Congress been familiar with the data discussing the dangers of multiple pregnancies, they would not have implemented such strict censorship laws on birth control. This 1939 decision is often accredited to being the first step in giving women full legal access to birth control.

Margaret Sanger’s calculated decision to use a court case to challenge the precedent of
the Comstock laws helped her to grant women further access to birth control. As the public’s attitude toward birth control was improving, Sanger utilized it to further her agenda of legalizing birth control. However, the scope for which birth control was legalized was narrow, as it was only permissible in situations relating to women’s health. Margaret Sanger’s reaction to the decision of her case was a mixture of dissatisfaction and caution, as she knew would continue to work towards giving women unrestricted access to birth control. While the One Package Decision was a crucial stepping stone, it left birth control activists with the realization that they still had a tremendous amount of work to do. For as Margaret Sanger once wrote, “No woman can call herself free who does not own and control her own body.”

In February of 1937, Margaret Sanger was invited to speak at the Hotel Hilton in El Paso,Texas to celebrate the opening of the El Paso Mother’s Health Center (which would later become the El Paso Planned Parenthood). However, due to pressure from local Catholic groups, the event was moved to the Hotel Paso del Norte. The event was hosted by Health Center Chairman, Beth Mary Goetting and the Birth Control Clinic Committee.

Sanger spoke in front of some 350 El Pasoans including a number of local clergy and doctors. She expressed the hope that clinics would be established both on El Paso’s north and south sides. Clinic equipment and supplies were provided by the Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau.

El Paso people are the first to take advantage of the December 7, United States Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that physicians might send contraceptives by mail – an act considered hitherto illegal…Now doctors need not fear a $500 fine, or five years in the penitentiary for administering a simple, scientific preventive to a woman who is not able to bear a child.

On February 9, 1938, Sanger wrote to Ms. Goetting commending the center:

I am particularly proud of the fine work being done in El Paso and I feel that your group has much to offer to others interested in advancing the birth control cause in Texas.

From 1937 – 1938, the clinic served over 600 patients. By the time of it’s closure in 2010, the clinic was serving more than 10,000 local women providing prenatal and postnatal information and healthcare including affordable HIV/AIDS testing.

The Hotel Paso del Norte is a historic hotel located less than one mile north from the United States-Mexico border. The hotel, designed by Trost & Trost, was opened in 1912. Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979, the hotel was extensively remodeled in 2004 and renamed the Camino Real El Paso Hotel.

As we move into the year 2014, we also come across a slew of new anniversaries to celebrate, and a look at the history of Margaret Sanger is no exception. 1914, the month of March to be exact, marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of Woman Rebel, a radical feminist monthly published by Margaret Sanger publicizing what would be called “birth control” in just a few months. The journal published the first use of the term “birth control,” a term that Sanger built into one of the most significant reform movements in the 20th century.

This apartment building replaced Sanger’s original apartment in 1920.

The humble beginnings of Woman Rebel took place in New York City during January of 2014. After leaving her husband, William Sanger, to paint in Paris, Margaret Sanger rented a “dingy” apartment at 34 Post Avenue in Upper Manhattan and moved in with her and the children. From there, she and a group of anarchists developed the Woman Rebel and the early arguments of the birth control movement. Who were these mysterious, unnamed men who helped Sanger get started? Although often referred to as “secretaries,” Edward Mylius, Robert Parker, and Otto Bobsien were not only part of Sanger’s inner circle, but played an integral role in the creation of Woman Rebel.

Scarce documentation survives about these three men. Edward Mylius was a British citizen who fled to the United States after publishing an libelous, anarchist paper in Paris “declaring that the King of England had once contracted a morganatic marriage” (My Fight). He wrote one credited article in Woman Rebel (“Freedom in America, Union Square, April 4, 1914,” Woman Rebel, Apr. 1914, 11), but was dedicated to the feminist monthly.

A failed playwright, Robert Parker often served as Sanger’s ghost writer and editor. Although Margaret Sanger claimed she invented the term “birth control”, it was actually Parker who suggested the term after connecting the importance of control with their goal of contraception.

“Margaret invited these men to her apartment for an emergency conference. They decided that the first thing she needed was a catchier name for contraception than the delicate ‘preventative means.’ They considered ‘conscious generation,’ ‘Neo-Malthusianism,’ and several others. Robert Parker offered the final suggestion. He was a polio victim who was studying Yoga, in which control is an essential feature, hoping that control might help him with his partly paralyzed hand. It occurred to him that control might apply to birth as well. ‘Birth control,’ he mused. ‘Birth Control … I think I like it.’ They all liked it. As they put on their hats and left, they agreed that birth control was the best name for the movement.” – Margaret Sanger, Madeline Gray, p. 72

The name obviously stuck, as we use it a century after its coinage.

The first to use the term “birth control” in print was actually Otto Bobsien. Bobsien joined the National Birth Control League, formed in 1915 after Sanger fled the U.S. He used Sanger’s list of subscribers and friends of Woman Rebel for the new league, and Sanger felt betrayed, especially when its president, Mary Ware Dennett, refused to support her case when she returned.

It is not surprising that Sanger kept her helpers in the background. The birth control movement was considered a special cause of women and Sanger would build it into her life’s work. But these were the people that Sanger trusted most, and turned to when she needed help getting her paper off the ground. Although the monthly had only seven issues, Woman Rebel helped express her beliefs and distribute them to a larger audience than her speeches alone. Now exposed to new ideas and people, Sanger felt better equipped to continue on her path to social awareness.

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